Game Thread PLAYOFFS: ROUND 1, GAME 3: NUGGETS @ BLAZERS - MAY 27, 2021 - THURSDAY, 7:30, NBATV & NBCSNW

Evanem's an asshole, that's what's going on.

 

Actually, that many turnovers were quite out of character for this franchise in the post season. I just looked at box scores starting with the Pelicans sweep, and there were only 2 other games where we logged more than 20 turnovers.

Teams that move the ball well also tend to have a lot more turnovers. Through their glory years, Golden State, despite being so insanely talented, were always in the bottom half of the league in this aspect.

Iso-heavy teams like Portland or the Harden Rockets have many flaws, but turnovers aren't one of them. If you only have the ball in the hands of elite ball handlers who aren't passing much, you just don't tend to lose the ball much. If Dame or CJ is confronted with a risky pass or a shot, they take the shot every time. (Draymond Green doesn't even consider the shot.)

Dame had 3 turnovers, but they were pretty forgivable given how much he controlled the ball and generated 10 assists and 42 points.

CJ and Roco accounted for nearly half the team's turnovers. Those turnovers just pissed all over the hard work Dame was doing. It made it all so pointless.

Having Dame dominate the ball less doesn't seem to be the solution to the turnover problem. Getting our guys to shake it off and move on seems like a much better option at this point.

Next year hopefully we have a new coach with a more egalitarian philosophy about passing (and hopefully CJ is gone). But for now I don't think there's much reason to panic.

Portland had 6 turnovers in game 1, and 21 in game 2. That averages out to 13, barely above the 11 that is what they average over the season, which was the lowest in the league.

 

Tough to compare a team from 4-5 years ago to what they are now as well.

 

Okay, now give me their turnover averages from regular season to the playoffs and lets see how much it increased. That's the only way to judge my hypothesis that running Dame into trap after trap and putting the team in a situation where it's a struggle to create legitimate offense increases turnovers in the playoffs.

 

All coaches get way to much credit win or lose, its the players, especially in todays game. Stevens will be swept, Lue with a Super Team just lost two home court games to a team thats never been out of the playoffs in 9 years. He cant be that bad of a coach, his players aren not jiving. just my opinion. The whole league minus maybe three teams are average at best.

 

I would advocate playing RHJ even against Jokic, but that would require a completely different kind of defense, with more players involved and having to read and react quickly. The team has not been prepared for that.

 

I see it differently. The whole league are highly skilled professional NBA players that are the very best in the entire world and three of those teams are stacked with some of the best that have ever played the game. Nobody not even the last spot on the roster is "average at best" the way I see it. The difference between winning and losing isn't even skill for the most part. It's court presence and mental fortitude with some luck thrown in. Lebron isn't the best three point shooter but you absolutely do not leave him open with the game on the line in the last minute from deep. He will make that shot every time (as we witnessed last night). He lives for that shot and the result.

 

I should have prefaced against the other NBA teams.
For sure all are world class best at their craft.

 

Yeah, I wish we'd practiced more small ball defense through the season, as it was obviously going to come into play on any kind of deep playoff run. But we are where we are.

 

Man you are a broken record. I feel like I can write your posts before you do. I don't know why I bother to reply. Don't you get bored of it? I do.

 

Blazers in the past have answered the challenge in the playoffs when the series starts getting chippy. The OKC series a couple years back. I remember there was constant trash talk and scuffles.

There’s a misconception throughout the league that our team is soft and can get thrown of their game with physical trash talking basketball. Particularly our guards.

 

I'm not sure that is a misconception. Blazers are generally very soft.

Dame can get upset and go supernova - but he's also just as likely to start complaining to the refs on every single play.
CJ finds was to commit a dirty foul on the opponent.
Nurk is willing to to play rough - but he quickly gets in foul trouble, which takes him out of the game (physically & mentally).
Norm - it's still too early to really see his tendencies in his role for the Blazers.
No one else on the team seems to step up when things get hard/physical.

Outside of Dame (on occasion), this team IS soft.

 

When the team plays best is when they stay strong together and don't even address the refs. Totally agree with you that they can get taken out of their game.

 

Win- one game closer to second round

Lose- one game closer to Terry getting fired

 

He's part of a group that shits on people who don't agree with him and worship everything they say. It's fine that they tried to do it to Torey and I since I joined Twitter two years ago because we don't like Stotts and didn't immediately grovel at the feet of people like him and others who were used to their word being taken as gospel and never questioned but after witnessing them completely bully people on there all while trying to claim they're the impartial ones who welcome all view points, I started calling out their bullshit and sticking up for those they were abusing. They're two-faced hypocrites who will then accuse the person calling them out of ruining Blazers Twitter. Just got sick of it. That makes me "not fun at parties." So yeah, the "cool" kids that still care about that kind of stuff as adults like we're still back in high school don't like me. Oh, no, lol!

Privately Evanem apologized and tried to act like we'd be good friends if we hung out in real life all while trying to still look cool in front of his friends publicly. So yeah, like I said two-faced.

 

So the Nuggets will put Gordon again to guard Lillard like what the Clippers do. This is not new to Stotts, let’s see how Dame adjust.

 

Ball movement is key. If Dame is part of the offense - we win, if he's forced to be THE offense - we lose.
Simple as that

 

And attitude.

 

You provided all these stats and I ask for the one relative to the discussion and you post this? Cant have a basketball discussion apparently? Shit, if you hate conversing with me why DID you reply? So many questions.

 

My biggest peeve with Nurk is his lazy free throw shooting. Too often he goes to the line, doesn't make the effort to focus and feel the shot, and just launches the ball at the rim. And misses the shot. Drives me nuts when he does that.